Look out Discworld!
by ihadanepiphany
Summary: This is a continuation of a thread that was started by Two Lunatics And A Sith Lord. Aislings arrived on Discworld. Note, you do not have to read Sith Lord but it helps. Please review!
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Discworld or any of its characters (but if the kind Terry Pratchett wants to give them to me then I wont say no!) but I do own one character here. Guess who.

This is a continuation of the Lunatics threads hopefully it will be worthwhile, but Ill let you guys be the judge of that.

Do please enjoy!

Munstrum Ridcully looked up from the pool table.

 'What in hells that?'

 'Shouting,' Ponder replied sourly. He'd only come up to ask if the Archchancellor had looked at his proposal for upgrading Hex. Since then he had been shouted at, deliberately misunderstood, had a pool cue shoved in his hand and been forced to stand and watch as Ridcully preformed trick shot after trick shot while going on about how today's young wizards hadn't a clue. Such things sour /anyone's/ temper.

Ridcully went to the door and drew a deep breath. 'BUUUUURRRRRRSSSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!' he bellowed. Less than three seconds went by before the Bursar –the Unseen University's in-house neuovore- appeared, a tic already having a party under one eye.

 'You wanted something?' he asked. (1) Ponder peered around the Archchancellor.

 'What happened to your hat?' he asked in bafflement. As everyone knew, a wizard simply wasn't a wizard without the obligatory pointy hat and as such the senior wizards frequently slept, bathed and everything else with them as due to the Uncertainty Principle, they argued, they might very well /not/ be wizards if they didn't. (2) /Technically/ the Bursars hat was still on the Bursars head. Parts of the brim and crown anyway. Well, threads of the crown and not much better of the brim really. But the hat /was/ on the head when whatever it was that happened happened and as such it was still on the head due to the fact that a months work with a scrubbing brush couldn't remove what the pointy hat had become.

 'Fireball,' the Bursar said shortly. 'There's a woman downstairs.'

 'Haven't you boys ever seen a woman before?' Ridcully asked, puzzled. 'Waste of good fireballs that.'

 'Yes Archchancellor,' Ponder said calmly, eyeing the non-twitching Bursar carefully. 'But something tells me that this is worth looking into.' (3)

(1) The Bursar usually operates in a range of dimensions only accessible to most people through copious use of alcohol, hallucinogens and small mushrooms growing on sides of hills that locals shamans only touch after a year of abstinence. The fact that he was not only present enough in the "normal" world to answer the Archchancellor coherently but to be sarcastic at the same time would have been very worrying if the other wizards attentions weren't caught by something even more worrying.

(2) While this theory has ample room for a non-magical person to poke holes in, inside the U.U's walls on Discworld where reality is full of badly patched holes anyway enough Wizards believed in the "Pointy Hat Theory" that it /might actually be true/.

(3) The Bursar twitches, permanently. This is a direct result of Ridcully's constant yelling and frequent dried frog pill overdoses. That he was /not/ twitching was a warning sign on a par with little yellow birds falling off perches in miles deep holes in the earth and indicated that it was time to get horribly drunk and borrow large amounts of money.

 'What's she doing now?' a voice hissed.

The Senior Wrangler, cursing, slowly and carefully looked around the makeshift barricade. The scene of devastation could have belonged to any battlefield, complete with students lying around groaning. The object of attention, however, was pacing back and forth, muttering. The cause of the Senior Wizards of Discworld hiding behind an over-turned dinner table suddenly stopped and swivelled.

 'She's looking straight at me!' the Senior Wrangler squeaked.

 'Try a fireball,' the Dean prompted.

 'Are you crazy?' the Chair of Indefinite Studies hissed. 'She set the Bursar on fire last time.'

 'But the Bursar isn't here,' the Dean pointed out in typical Wizard fashion.

But the Senior Wrangler could only stare in terrified amazement as the woman strode towards him with a bright smile, magically setting the room back to order as she went.

 'I do apologize gentlemen,' she said when she reached the table behind which the senior staff were huddling. The wizards hurriedly scrambled to their feet and brushed off their robes, putting on stern expressions in the hope that she didn't notice the how badly their knees were knocking. 'I am so sorry about my behaviour, I can't believe how badly I acted, especially around gentlemen of your stature,' she continued, politely waiting until they were clear of the table before she righted it again. The Senior Wrangler gaped at the ease with which she spun a ten foot long five foot wide mahogany table back onto its stout legs and a headache started in sympathy. (4)

 'I should hope so young lady,' the Dean snapped. 'That was highly irresponsible behaviour and a complete waste of magic.'

 'Not to mention disrupting,' the Lecturer in Recent Runes added.

 'Didn't even get to try the treacle pudding,' the Chair of Indefinite Studies moaned.

 'Well young lady, what have you got to say for yourself?' the Dean asked. The young lady in question seemed to falter in the face of this righteous anger and ducked her head, tucking strands of hair behind one ear as she did so.

 'I am so sorry good sirs,' she began. 'And I'm afraid that I have no real excuse for my behaviour, I suppose that I can only tell you the circumstances which lead to my arriving in your midst.' She looked across to where the sun was shining in one of the windows and sighed, as one man the wizards zeroed in on the low cut of her dress. 'My presence here was not my intention,' she said looking back to the senior staff whose eyes guiltily snapped back to her face. 'I was sent here by one who I thought was a friend,' she shrugged and the wizards' eyeballs nearly creaked in the effort to stay on her face. 'I guess I should be more careful about who I trust huh?'

 'Well trusting people is no crime,' Runes said. She smiled at him, making him go bright red.

 'Well if you were sent here against your will,' Chair put in hurriedly. 'Then the disruption was hardly your fault.'

 'You are very kind to say so,' the girl smiled.

 'Yes but you did cause a lot of damage,' the Dean argued, feeling the tide of opinion beginning to flow against him. 'What with fireballs and whatnot.'

 'Our students did fire first Dean,' Runes reminded him.

 'She was merely defending herself,' Chair added.

 'You call that defending herself?' the Dean cried. 'She annihilated the students, set the Bursar on fire and she's not even scorched.' The wizards took this opportunity to look her up and down, who was bent down tying her shoes at this point.

 'Good defending,' muttered the Chair.

 'Well, I guess,' the Dean grudgingly admitted. 'But still, she's a danger.'

 'To whom?' Runes asked. 'Us?'

 'Well…'

 'And if the students spent more time studying their defensive spells and less time out on the town,' Runes continued, playing the one card he knew would work. 'They would have been able to defend themselves as well.'

 'I suppose…'

 'Um gentlemen?' they heard the girl say and turned to look at her. 'I thank you for your understanding, but I wonder could I ask you a few questions?'

 'Ask away dear lady,' the Chair said gallantly, cutting straight across the Dean.

 'Where am I?'

 'Unseen University.'

 'And that would be where?'

 'Ankh-Morpork, can't you tell? She could, by the way her nose had completely broke down within seconds of arrival but wanted to be sure.

 'Thank you. I've never been here before you see and I wasn't sure where I was. I wonder could I ask one more question.'

 'Of course.'

 'Where would be a good place to stay for a few days?'

 'Well there's,' the Dean managed to say before Runes clapped a hand across his mouth.

 'Excuse us for a moment,' he said brightly. The senior wizards went into a huddle from which the girl could hear the whispered conversation.

 'What are you talking about?

 'We can't let her go off into the city alone'

 'Duty and so forth'

 'What would people think?'

 'Screw the people!'

 'Look lads either she stays here and is kept safe or she leaves and gods only knows hat happens to her.'

 'I'm more worried about what happens to the people around her.'

 'Then isn't it better that we keep an eye on her since we can deal with it?'

 'Can we?'

 'We're not students Dean.'

 'Yes but how do we know that she isn't from the Dungeon Dimensions?'

 'Since when do Things look like /that/?' The huddle opened briefly so that all the wizards could look the intruder up and down very carefully, just in case. She gave them a hopeful, puzzled smile. The huddle closed again and the argument seemed over.

 'Cant let her wander off in a strange city.'

 'Exactly, you heard her she's never been here before.'

 'I actually meant that Ankh-Morpork was strange but that's also true.'

 'But what would people /think/?' the Dean wailed.

 'What would you rather they think Dean? That we take throw defenceless…'

 'Defenceless!'

 '/Defenceless/ young women out on the streets or that we look after people who ask us for help?' There was a pause.

 'Well…' Another pause. 'But where would she sleep?'

 'If she needs a bed I can always sleep on the couch in my room,' Chair offered.

 'Mrs Whitlow can arrange something I'm sure,' Runes said hurriedly, stamping on Chairs foot. 'She'll make sure there's no trouble.'

 'Alright but how will she earn her keep?' In the silence, Runes tread on Chairs foot again.

 'How about teaching the students defensive skills?' the Senior Wrangler said slowly, up to know he'd been silent, mostly watching the young woman who keep shooting small smiles his way. The rest of the wizards perked up.

 'Yes she does seem to be able for it.'

 'But is she able for teaching?'

 'Would /you/ rather do it Dean?' Pause. The wizards looked at each other. The huddle opened.

 'You'll stay here in the University during your stay here,' the Dean told the young woman who seemed taken aback.

 'But, but I can't.'

 'Why not?'

 'It'd be too much trouble for you.'

 'Nonsense, this place is more than big enough for one more.'

 'But how will I pay you back.'

 'Teaching students how to defend yourself as you did.'

 'But, but, what will people say?'

 'Mrs. Whitlow will arrange all the, arrangements and that will be that.' The wizards exchanged grins behind the Dean. The girl seemed gobsmacked by the Deans bulldozer approach. 

 'Well if you're sure.'

 'We're positive my dear, we want you to stay,' the Chair told her, smiling in what he thought was a kindly way.

 'Well, okay then,' the wizards practically high-fived. 'But what are your names?'

 'Dean,' said the Dean.

 'Chair in Indefinite studies, call me Chair.'

 'Lecturer in Recent Runes, or just Runes.'

 'Senior Wrangler, known as Wrangler.'

 'And your name would be?' the Dean asked politely.

 'Aisling O' Connell.'

 'Well Aisling,' Runes said. 'Welcome to the Unseen University.'

 'Thank you, Runes,' Aisling smiled. Damn I'm good         

(4) On Discworld, levitation and whatnot are regulated by cause and effect and any wizard wanting to levitate a glass had better be properly prepared for the task or else properly prepared for stepping on his own brains which were just flipped out his ears. The flipping of a wizardly dining table was more than enough to explode the woman's head and rid the wizards of the trouble altogether. That only the Senior Wrangler noticed this is an indication of the blindness of the senior staff to anything that they don't want to see, this could possibly be a survival trait. (5)

(5) Not in this case, but you can't get it right every time. 

Ponder Stibbons stuck out an arm which was promptly run into by the Archchancellor. 'Wait a minute sir,' Ponder said. 'Its gone quiet.' And he was immediately proved wrong by a burst of laughter which came from the Great Hall. Ridcully frowned and to Ponders amazement, prepared a small fireball.

 'I don't trust laughter,' the Archchancellor said in response to Ponders puzzled look. 'You know where you stand with screams but laughter could mean anything.' Quietly, the two men crept down the stairs and stood just outside the doors to the Great Hall. 'On the count of three,' Ridcully whispered. 'One, two…' The Bursar wandered down the stairs, opened the doors and went straight into the Great Hall. Ponder and Ridcully waited for something to happen. And waited. And waited.

 'Bugger this,' Ridcully said at last. He threw open the doors and strode in. Ponder sidled after him.

 'What in the hells going on in here?' Ridcully demanded when he stopped at the table at which the senior staff and some of the older students were entertaining Aisling.

 'We're just welcoming Miss O' Connell to the University,' the Dean told him.

 'Really?' Ridcully said. 'That's fantastic, why didn't you say before? Just one thing Dean, who the hell is Miss O'Connell!'

 'Er, that would be me sir,' Aisling said, standing. Ridcully turned and looked at her.

 'And what are you doing here?' he asked, controlling his temper with an effort.

 'She's just,' the Dean began, to his detriment.

 '/Was I asking you Dean? I was not asking you Dean I was asking Miss O' Connell so let her speak for herself!/'

 'Aisling,' Aisling said when Ridcully had sufficiently cowed the Dean. Sugar and sighs had won over the other wizards but she could see that the Archchancellor was another matter altogether.

 'What?' Ridcully snapped before he could stop himself.

 'My name is Aisling.' Ridcully eyed her and she eyed him back.

 'Alright then, Aisling,' he said at last. 'What are you doing here?'

 'A former friend sent me here against my wishes, when I arrived I caused some trouble which these gentlemen,' she sent a dazzling smile in the direction of the rest of the wizards, some of whom even smiled back before wiping them off in response to the Archchancellors glare. 'Have been kind enough to forgive. They offered me a room here as I have never been in this city before in return for coaching some of the student in defensive spells.'

 'They have, have they?' Ridcully's look passed over the assembled wizards who ducked as if it were a physical thing.

 'That this offer was under the condition of your approval was stressed to me several times,' Aisling continued guilelessly.

 'Was it now?' Ridcully said, not believing it for a moment. There was silence for several moments while Ridcully thought it over. 'Have you spoken to Mrs. Whitlow?' he asked after a while.

 'Yes sir,' said the Dean. 'She said that it was alright by her as long as it was alright by you.'

 'Hmm.' Ridcully looked Aisling up and down. 'Do you hunt?' he asked her.

 'Yes but only if its worth it,' she lied.

 'Fish?'

 'Yes.'

 'Play pool?' Aisling smiled and nodded. 'Good. Alright you're in, now budge over and pass the treacle pudding.'

Yes Aisling is my own original character, no Beth Im afraid, but I'll try and make up for it. I know it's a slow chapter but review and I'll do my damnedest to get it up to speed.

Till next time!


	2. Studious Students?

Well Chapter 2 is finally up, I hope it was kind of worth the effort taken to click the little blue letters. Anyhoo, Aisling is noticed by people and she starts making her presence felt in the university.

Thanks to Mercator for allowing me to use her wonderful character Hanna, now Lady Hanna Baroness of Khavos and contracted Seamstress of Lord HavelockVetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. To find out how in the name of god THAT happened read look up Mercator and read her collection The Seamstress Tales (I think that's what its called) you will not regret it. Thanks again Mercator.

But now on to the second part of the story.

'And that was it?' The informant, a member of the kitchen staff in the Unseen University nodded nervously, his cap spinning nervously in his hands.

'Yes milord, and then they started lunch.'

'I see.' Lord Vetinari picked up one of the ever-present sheets of paper from his desk and started scanning it as if the informant wasn't there. Said informant started edging quietly towards the door, reward or no reward his Lordship always put him on edge. 'Was there singing involved?' Vetinari asked just as the man got to the door.

'Er, after a while milord,' the man replied, then frowned. 'Though several verses were cut out of The Wizards Staff and they stopped halfway through the first verse of The Hedgehog Song.' Vetinari had a sudden and remarkably accurate flash of the senior staff of Unseen University collectively coughing loudly and changing the subject.

'Indeed. Thank you, you may go.'

'Yes milord, thank you milord.' The man bowed while struggling with the doorknob and made good his escape.

Vetinari put down the sheet and stared thoughtfully into the air.

'So the wizards have a new member,' a voice came from the corner. 'Quick promotion.'

'You think the "nice dress very very nice dress" that he kept mentioning may have had something to do with it?' Lady Hanna, Baroness of Khavos shrugged.

'All things are possible, though aren't wizards supposed to be celibate?' Hanna grinned, her own experiences as Seamstress belied that fact, though admittedly they were only students.

'Yes, supposedly sex interferes with the magic.' Vetinari and Hanna shared a look.

'Funny place to keep magic.' Vetinari shrugged.

'Sounds ticklish to me.' Vetinari shuffled papers for a moment while Hanna pointedly Did Not Look at him.

'How would tomorrow afternoon suit you?' he asked at last.

'Perfectly.'

'The Traffic Division says that they need new clamps,' Captain Carrot was briefing Commander Vimes in his office.

'They just got some.'

'No sir, new _kinds_ of clamps. Some of the merchants are putting wheels on their carts that the clamps wont fit around.' Vimes sighed, changing cartwheels wasn't exactly illegal and wasn't exactly referred to in the traffic laws either but _was_ causing even more havoc in Ankh-Morporks streets, just when it was starting to become manageable.

'Tell them to keep using the old clamps but when they come across wheels that they don't fit around, break the wheel and put in the clamp around the axle, okay?'

'Yessir,' Carrot made a careful note on the paper and put it to the back of the sheaf in his hand. 'Black Ribboners again sir.'

'No,' was the immediate reply. -1)-

'Last one sir, from the Unseen University.'

'The _wizards_ are complaining to us now?'

'No sir, I have a few sources there and since, Carcer I thought it would be best if I used them.' Vimes looked at him oddly, the thought hadn't even occurred to him, well it _had_ but in the chaos following Carcer it had slipped his mind completely.

'You do know that we have no jurisdiction there, right?' he said, then felt the fool, of _course_ Carrot knew that, he knew all of Ankh-Morporks Laws and Ordinances off by heart. Carrot looked at him.

'Yessir, but maybe its best to be prepared for when it spills into our jurisdiction.'

'When what spills?' Carrot handed the sheets over silently. 'As you can see sir,' he said when Vimes was halfway down the first page. 'It's less of an "it" and more of a "who".'

'Any idea who?'

'Calls herself Aisling, and wears a "very very nice dress".' Vimes nodded as he read the third reference to the dress in question.

'I don't suppose your informant gave a proper description of this Aisling and not just her clothing?' Carrot had clearly been waiting for this as he handed over an iconograph. Vimes shot him a look. 'Practical man your informant, knows just what is needed.'

'Yes sir, he had several ready for me to choose from.'

'Oh yeah? And how many others were there?'

'I didn't like to ask.' Vimes glanced at the iconograph, it showed a smiling young woman with brown hair and green eyes in a very fetching red dress sitting with what could be either the faculty of UU or small foothills tastelessly covered in velvet. He looked again, his eyes watered.

'Carrot,' he said passing the iconograph over. 'Can you please tell me whats on her right arm?' Carrot squinted.

'Er, freckles, a small scar, er.' There was a pause in which Carrot wiped at eyes. 'Could the demon need changing?' he asked passing it back.

'No,' Vimes said in a voice that sounded only slightly more certain than he was. 'They disappear after a while by themselves.' He looked again, moving the iconograph this way and that and squinting. 'You call into the Library every now and then don't you?' he asked, setting it aside in his "Things To Glare At Later" pile and the Paperwork immediately began work on it.

'Yessir, if I can spare the time.' Their eyes met. 'Which I think will be sometime tomorrow sir,' he continued slowly.

'Good man,' Vimes said. 'Now, how's the new sergeant doing?'

1) The Black Ribboners were basically a bunch of vampires who swore off the red stuff and tended to sing lots of songs about cocoa. Vimes was a Watch Commander whose neck and stake-hand itched whenever he came within fifty feet of a vampire, Black Ribbon or no Black Ribbon. However since vampires were never really the ones who liked to get a point (geddit?) they wasted several trees a year trying to get said Watch Commander to enlist several or indeed any of their of their number. Needless to say, the trees were wasted.

It was the following morning and Aisling was standing outside the door to Room 669. It was eerily silent, though with Wizarding students this means absolutely nothing. Advice from teaching staff rose in the back of her mind, "Show initiative but not too much, they don't like that" "Keep control but not obviously, they resent it" and "Never ever show your fear, they feed on it". She glanced to the end of the corridor where the Senior Staff were "waiting" behind sandbags. The Dean gave her a sickly smile and a thumbs-up. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, disabled the silencing spell and strode in.

At first the noise from the assembled students was thunderous but as Aisling walked across the vast expanse between the door and the podium and the students noticed her, the volume dropped into dead silence so that the sound of her boots echoed off the ancient stone walls. Aisling had been given a set of robes and shoes as well as a hat on signing on –although the fierce debating about her actual rank in the hierarchy would probably never be settled -2)- – and had only to spend half an hour on them before being mostly satisfied with the effect. The hooded ankle-length black robe had been trimmed with deep purple and dark red, material had been added in the form of trailing sleeves and flowing skirt but taken out in the form of a V-neck and fitted bodice. The boots were now knee high and had three inch heels and the hat fit quite well sloped over one eye. Given that the class was all-male and all-student, it wasn't long before the noise level was deafening again though now it consisted mainly of catcalls invitations and jokes that consisted of words that most of the older wizards would have had to look up.

Aisling reached the podium and waited. After a few moments when it became clear that whatever she was waiting for wasn't about to show up, she rapped quite hard on the podium top with her right hand. Immediately each and every desk top in the room swung up and belted their occupant quite hard in the face.

'Good morning class,' Aisling called in a magnified voice that seemed to fill the entire theatre. 'My name is Miss Aisling O' Connell and I will be teaching you defensive spells. In other words,' she grinned. 'How to stop somebody from doing exactly what I just did.'

2) Wizards are by nature intensely hierarchal. What's the point of learning magic if you cant look down on those below you and aspire to those above you, they ask. In former days, promotion was very much self-propelled and usually fatal (for those being demoted that is) but since Ridcully the Brown took attempts on his life very seriously, (the man still slept with 2 cocked and loaded crossbows by his bed and his staff leaning within reach) several would-be assassins were soon hung out of windows by ankles and broken limbs. This means that upward promotion within the ranks has effectively stalled, but without dampening the wizards innate Sense of Rank. Ridcully's time as Archchancellor was just unofficially seen by all as a resting period. Really.

Ponder Stibbons found most of the faculty crammed into one area of one of the many miles of corridor that turned the Unseen University into one ginormous maze. He stood for a moment and watched them bicker and elbow each other aside constantly while trying desperately to peer into a door window (A/N those little glass windows that are set into classroom doors so you can look in without opening the door, you read it right), and constantly shushing each other while at the back Ridcully was demanding to know what was going on at the top of his lungs. He coughed quite loudly and somehow this went unnoticed by anybody.

'Can she _do_ that?' he heard the Chair gasp.

'Can _we_ do that?' Dean asked hopefully.

'Gods I hope not!'

'Not that Runes, _that_.'

Stibbons sighed and began elbowing his way to the door, nearly suffocating on the way, but he eventually managed to squeeze out from between the Dean and the Chair and was promptly squashed right up against the glass. He somehow managed to push back enough to get a clear view and breathe at the same time.

'Youre blocking my view' Runes hissed at him.

'View of what?' Ponder hissed back. 'Its just someone teaching a class, who is it?'

'Put your glasses back on,' Dean told him. Ponder bit back a retort and wiped the fog off the glass of the window with his sleeve and peered through.

'Who the hell is that?' he breathed. Yesterdays impromptu meet-and-greet had mostly passed over Ponders head once he realized that the University wasn't in immediate danger and he disappeared once it became apparent that the senior staff were going to start singing at some point. He vaguely remembered shaking hands with someone in red but the subsequent twenty hours working on/ cajoling with/yelling at Hex had pushed it out of his mind altogether.

'That is Miss O' Connell, she's teaching Defensive Spells.' He squinted at the figure berating a class of usually sullen students, and it was working!

'They're _listening_ to her. They're taking _notes_! How is she making them _do_ that?!' he asked, receiving only awed shrugs that nearly squished him against the door again.

'Move Stibbbons,' Runes said losing his patience. 'You've had enough time, I want to see.' But just at that point, Aisling seemed to give up pretending that she couldn't see or hear them and pointed at the door. The window went black.

'Aaaawh!' the wizards let out a collective whine, then seemed to realise where they were. There was much coughing and "excuse me"s and nonchalant wandering back down the corridor as every wizard tried to make it clear to every other wizard that he had very important business elsewhere. Indeed, very important. Within moments Stibbons was all alone in the corridor except for the Bursar who kept trying to walk through the wall, though before long he gave up and wandered quite happily towards somewhere else.

'Hmm,' Ponder said, before walking very slowly back towards the HMB and Hex.

He had a feeling it was going to get very interesting around here very soon.

I know its difficult to read but the damn thing wont leave more than one space between paragraphs how the hell do you get it to leave more than one line between paragraphs!

oh and please review?


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